Listen "The Clockmaker"
Episode Synopsis
It was the middle of a cool September night in Munich, Germany. The year was 1939. In an otherwise unoccupied auditorium, a man knelt on hands and knees chiseling a square hole into a large stone pillar. The lights were out, but a small flashlight dimmed with a handkerchief provided a pallid puddle of light. The man's chisel was also wrapped in cloth to quiet his hammer strikes. Whenever there was some unexpected sound, he froze. Whenever a truck rumbled past the building, he seized the opportunity to chisel more vigorously. It was exceedingly tedious and slow work. The fellow was a 36-year-old German handyman named "Georg Elser". But "handyman" isn't exactly the right word. In his three and a half decades he had cultivated many skills, including clock making, cabinet building, master carpentry, and stone quarrying. And the task at hand required all of his diverse expertise.
More episodes of the podcast Damn Interesting
There Once Was a Man Called Curley
06/09/2025
Much Ado About Adenoids
23/06/2025
A Trail Gone Cold
20/03/2024
Journey To The Invisible Planet
13/06/2023
From Where The Sun Now Stands
21/05/2023
The Ancient Order Of Bali
28/03/2023
Lofty Ambitions
13/12/2022
The Rube's Dilemma
27/10/2022
Devouring The Heart Of Portugal
03/05/2022
The Mount St. Helens Trespasser
28/02/2022
ZARZA We are Zarza, the prestigious firm behind major projects in information technology.